Has your service broken the rules? Look Up

This information supports you as a parent to make more informed choices. If an early childhood service is shown as having breached regulations ask it to explain what it did wrong and the improvements that have been made.

The lists are not inclusive of all services that breached licensing requirements for two reasons. First the ministry does not do annual licensing checks. And second, the ministry can exercise discretion in whether to formally put a service on notice. It may for example, take into consideration the number of breaches, how a licence reclassification will affect the commercial position of a service, and whether the cost to it of the service provider bringing in a lawyer would outweigh the benefits of licence classification (even on finding a major safety issue such as an area being used for children’s sleep and play that does not have NZ Fire Service approval).

As Dr Sarah Alexander chief executive of ChildForum said: "It is impossible to know the true number of services that are not meeting licensing requirements at any one time."

ChildForum has been instrumental in researching and bringing to public attention early childhood sector concerns around transparency in the Ministry of Education’s handling and reporting of serious incidents and complaints (read more).

The Ministry monitors provisionally licensed services by setting deadlines for improvements. A provisional licence is issued for a fixed period of time and if improvements are not made then a new deadline is set (unless the Ministry decides to cancel the licence). At a cost to the taxpayer the Ministry contracts a professional development provider to educate and support the service provider to resolve issues (for example read about the Bright Sparks childcare case). Following the return of the service to a full license status the Ministry has completed its monitoring.

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